Monday, July 25, 2005

"And all the while, a strange southern Jesus looms in the background. "

No....it's a statue of the Sacred Heart. There's nothing particularly southern and very little strange about it.

This movie is so obviously made by Europeans. Such strange "southern things" as coal-mining (ever been to Pennsylvania?), dive bars, and old cars. Lots of plainly American stuff is passed off as "southern". Lots of Baptist churches appear in the film, but only exteriors and drive-bys. All the interiors, discussion, and services are of Pentecostal/charismatic churches. Presumably because of their exoticism.

In the movie they say the south is the only place you can get off the interstate and drive a couple of miles and it's like going back a hundred years. They should check out some of the small towns in NH, ME, etc.

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

I tried to go see Searching for the Wrong Eyed Jesus today (also at the IFC Center). The movie was at 9:30PM, or so I thought. I got there at 9:30, but it turned out it had started at 9:15. So I'll have to try again on another day.

...my own top two picks are Michael McConnell (although I'd want him for chief) and John Roberts. I know, they're white men, but they have some virtues. If there are too many white men on the Court, maybe we ask John Paul Stevens to retire?

I went to see... Me and You and Everyone You Know at the IFC Center theater. It was interesting, amusing, and somewhat juvenile. I wouldn't bother if I were you. The theater itself, however, is awesome. (With the exception of the popcorn, they serve what is described as organic popcorn. The only difference seems to be that the kernels are not as big and fluffy.)

Rode a bus today. I had previously done this when we visited New York. This was the first time I had done it since I moved to New York though. It wasn't a crosstown and it ran straight up Sixth Avenue just like the train there did, so it was probably pointless, it just happened to be there right as I was coming out of a store and heading uptown (though the train station was right there too.

Thursday, July 07, 2005

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

I walked by the NYC Opus Dei building on Lexington today between buying some pants and going to church. There was a black man walking in and out of the building. Apparently the Work brooks no middle ground on the melanin issue... no albino assasin monks in evidence though.

Saturday, July 02, 2005

Were it not for the silver-dollar-size scar on the inside of his elbow, the legacy of an AK-47 round, [Lance Corporal] Jeffery Walker would look like any other freshman trying to survive the wrenching induction into the U.S. Naval Academy.

The wiry 20-year-old from Conover, N.C., calmly complied, following the yellow line taped to the floor of Alumni Hall on Tuesday. It marked the path to his new uniforms, to doctors' needles, to instructions on a proper salute and, ultimately, to becoming an officer.

Walker knows that no matter how exacting the next four years may be, no one will be shooting at him. Nor will he watch his fellow Marines spill blood on the streets of Fallujah.

"It won't be Iraq," he said.

Walker is part of a small but growing demographic of incoming cadets and midshipmen at the nation's service academies: combat veterans. He has the scar and the Purple Heart to prove it.

The Naval Academy has long accepted midshipmen from the enlisted ranks [has it ever not?]; it took 76 this year. But combat veterans have rarely been seen at the Annapolis institution since the Vietnam era. Walker is one of two sworn in yesterday, both Marines, both of whom fought in Iraq. [Well, we haven't had that many combat vets since then.] Academy officials expect more.

The number of veterans has grown sharply at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where 30 combat veterans were inducted this week, including a Purple Heart recipient, said West Point spokesman Frank DeMaro. Last year, there were 22. The year before that, eight...."Their respect within the brigade will be high, especially when the other midshipmen see their combat ribbons on their chest," [Vice Adm. Rodney P.] Rempt[, the academy superintendent,] said. "What we do is encourage them to share their stories and their experiences and to help their classmates. But they still have to achieve all the same goals."

And this is kinda lazy:

And like all first-year midshipmen, he was instructed on the five basic responses all plebes need to know: